Less is More – How to Manage Simplicity in Web Design

You must have heard of the phrase “Less is more”, but have you ever actually tried working on it?

When people are working on some project, in order to make it perfect, they try to use almost everything, but this is no way to come up with something exceptionally well. When it comes to web designing, being subtle and simple is the key to success.

You cannot use too much of colors or designing as it will just ruin the complete website. Always remember the Simplicity rules. Keeping a website simple is not all about how the layout looks; it has more of a technical approach to it. Too much of pictures or design will make the User interface confusing for a visitor. Also, navigation becomes quite hard.

Managing simplicity in a web design is not at all an easy thing. At times, you can try your level best to make things look simple and subtle, but you might not be able to achieve your goal, because you are not doing it the right way.

So, as a web designer, you really need to focus on a few things to make your website appear and function in a more comprehensible way, but it should stay elegant and beautiful. After all, it is a website and the visitor should love what he sees when he visits your website.

Too much of designing and coloring will only distract your visitor and he might not be able to get the information he is looking for. Let’s talk about a few griffs that any web designer should consider in order to simplify his web design:

Brainstorm Your Way to a Simple Web Design

Before doing anything, one needs to make a plan. You cannot start making changes in something on a random basis. You should have a plan in order to simplify your website. Also, the changes are not supposed to be drastic.

Even small changes can help you a lot in simplifying your website. The first thing you should do is to make a list of all the essential elements of a website. You need to prepare another list of things that are not so important, thus they can be removed from your website. One thing that you really need to focus on is the number of pages. Get rid of all extra pages in your website.

Focus On Essential Elements, Only!

Anyone who is into web designing will best off by focusing on the essential elements. Still, some people fail to achieve this goal and the end result is a poor website. People end up creating a mess, because most of the designers are unable to differentiate between important and redundant factors of a website. Focusing is the key to a simpler website.

Do not try to put in everything that you think will make your website look good. Identifying what needs to be focused on is not an easy task. A web design has a lot of things included – so it is your job to distinguish between indispensable and superfluous things. Once you are done with this, start focusing on essential elements and their correct implementation.

Ever Heard Of 80/20 Rule?

20% of your website should be more than enough to welcome a visitor and it should assure the visitor that the rest of 80% is exactly what he is looking for. That 20% should be the USP of your website and it is entirely up to you to preset the USP.

This rule will actually help you to simplify your website. By following this rule, you will be able to trim your website and pinpoint only crucial elements. This will not only help you in making your website simple, but it will also help in serving your website’s purpose.

That 20% will help you in creating a website with less distractions and a plain way of presenting the information your visitor was looking for in the first place. It will take a few seconds for a user to navigate away from your website. Reduce the reasons of navigating away and increase the reasons of staying by using the 80-20 rule.

Getting Rid Of the Unnecessary Stuff

You must have heard of the phrase “Excess of everything is bad”. So, too much of anything on your website will pretty much destroy it. You need to identify things which are not really required on your website and then get rid of them.

Truth is, there is a vast scale of unnecessary stuff. The first candidate is footer – make sure to remove extra links with no purpose, like social media (they are better off in other locations).

One word of warning though – Be very careful if you’re using WordPress and you intend to remove the links to to theme designer & WP. Our head editor tried it and ended up with the whole domain blocked. Make them tiny, but leave them alone.

Several more things you may want to make more transparent are:

Pop-ups

too many social media sharing widgets

sidebar elements

Meta details

Cutting Down on the Number of Pages

There is no need for hundreds of tabs on your website. You are just confusing a visitor. Less tabs and pages are a better choice, if you really want to keep things simple and to the point.

You should know better which pages are required and which are not, so be scant and remove useless pages. For example, having two separate pages named “About Us” and “About Me” is just nuts.

Fancy yourself in your visitors’ shoes if you want to simplify matters. The major reason why anyone would visit your website is to gain information – so make sure your website serves its purpose. Less pages mean simpler navigation and a perspicuous home page.

Color Scheme

Since we all love colors, do not blame yourself if you get carried away with them. To be honest, too many colors are not very appealing for the eye. So, in order to keep it simple, you need to limit your color scheme.

Just because you have a large numbers of colors to select from doesn’t mean you should use all of them. Focus on your brand, then select the colors accordingly. Remember, you are creating a website, not a rainbow. There is no need to make it way too colorful.

If the colors are not pleasing to the eyes of your visitor, he will immediately leave your website regardless of the fact that your website has great content to offer. You can study color schemes in order to use the good ones.

For instance, too much yellow on your website will annoy your visitor. Also, dark blue and light blue looks good together, this combination can never go wrong.

A Bird Eye View at the Post

If you really want to have a website which is attractive, follow the phrase “less is more”. Trying to put in too much in a room which does not have enough space will leave the room congested.

Same goes for a website, implementing a lot of designing, tab, colors etc will only make a user frustrated and annoyed. Your website will be a hit if it is simple, yet elegant.